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The fiscal crisis in Greece, plans by the U.S. and Cuba to open embassies in each other’s capital and tennis competition at Wimbledon are among the many developing stories in recent weeks that AP journalists have covered in a live blog type of presentation.

The filing system, called The Latest, presents short blocks of text on a running story in a broadcast-friendly fashion that works for both online and on-air use.

When used, The Latest replaces AP’s current breaking news filing protocol for text — in which a story is first reported as a so-called NewsNow of 130 words or less containing key developments, and then written-through again to restore all the details and background.

“The Latest allows us to imbue developing stories with a you-are-there quality, which makes them feel all the more fresh and current,” said Director of Top Stories Kristin Gazlay.

“For instance, when the Boston Marathon bombing trial started and it took awhile for the proceedings to kick off, one of the first updates to The Latest led off noting that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sitting alone at the defense table and described his demeanor,” Gazlay added. “That’s something we would have been unlikely to file a freestanding NewsNow on, but a detail readers would devour on a top story.”

She noted that the pilot would be expanded to more stories, “including ones that have fewer developments but still can benefit from this treatment.”

Gazlay added: “We’ve heard from a number of TV customers that it’s actually a time-saver for them _ they don’t have to search through a number of separate files to glean the highlights of a story, since they’re all in one file. And the self-contained entries are ready to read on-air.”

At least 200 newspaper, television and radio websites featured The Latest when AP used it for the NCAA Final Four games, including many TV network affiliates.

The Latest also is increasingly gaining traction on Twitter: Versions of it showed in Twitter’s top 10 rankings for each of the three days of the U.S. Memorial Day weekend.

The bottom line is that The Latest has turned out to be effective in showcasing the newest information about a story in a way that is palpably fresh, fast and even more useful to customers. AP plans to expand its use.

What’s the biggest challenge of covering an event like the Oscars?
The biggest challenge is to cover it broadly while also trying to eke out unique and exclusive content for our members. We do that through great interviews, interesting stories ahead of the event and getting different storylines from a red carpet that is overflowing with media.

How does AP approach entertainment coverage differently than other media outlets?
We’ve been covering entertainment for decades, but our approach has certainly evolved. Today, we have entertainment staff around the globe and are even quicker with our coverage and approach from a multiformat angle, including our video team. We have an additional boost from Invision, our celebrity commercial photo agency. Because of our worldwide reach, the AP has a unique ability to cover events like no other, and because of its varied membership, we report on a wide and diverse swath of entertainment. But what continues to make us stand out is our high standard of journalism.

How does AP manage to land major scoops on such highly competitive beats?
Our journalism speaks for itself, and we’ve developed great sources who, in turn, have come to us as a trusted and reliable place to break news, such as Whitney Houston’s death, Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt’s nuptials, and more recently, word that Harper Lee was finally releasing a second book. We have excellent journalists who carefully cultivate their beats to land such scoops, and the reputation of AP helps in securing them because the industry knows that we are trusted and have worldwide reach that is second to none.

You started your career covering state news in the Albany, New York, bureau. How did that experience prepare you for covering entertainment?
I also covered college and high school sports and just general spot news. What it taught me was to keep a laser focus on the news of the story and not get caught up in the spin. I also was able to take the basics of covering news and apply it to celebrity reporting. At the end of the day, people want to read an entertaining story, but they want to be informed and learn something that they didn’t know before. That’s my goal when it comes to entertainment reporting.

Who has been the most interesting person you’ve ever interviewed?Prince. I’ve interviewed him three times, most recently last fall at Paisley Park. Each time I could not record it, and he didn’t want me to take notes for part of it the last time. I spent hours with him but wished for more because he was so smart and had so much knowledge. I could do dozens of stories on him and wish I could!

The AP’s live coverage of the red carpet and Governors Ball after-party will be hosted by entertainment correspondent XiXi Yang. It will begin at 5:30 p.m. ET on Sunday, Feb. 22.

Social Media Editor Eric Carvin describes how and why The Associated Press is using @AP, our flagship Twitter feed, to highlight stories reported by member news organizations.

AP Social Media Editor Eric Carvin (AP Photo).

What’s behind the touting of others’ stories via @AP?AP is a cooperative of news organizations, and a core part of our mission is to provide our members the tools and content they need to succeed. Over the past few years, we’ve built up a significant social media following — especially on Twitter, where the flagship @AP account is approaching 5 million followers — and we’re constantly looking for ways to leverage our online presence to benefit members and customers more directly. This one was a no-brainer: We look for strong member and customer enterprise content, in all formats, and choose some to highlight from @AP. This can give the member a big boost in engagement and clicks, and @AP followers are served a strong piece of content that they might not otherwise know about. It’s win-win.

We obviously didn’t invent the notion of retweeting another news organization — pointing to external content has been key to the Twitter ecosystem going back to the early days. The difference here is that we, as a news cooperative, are in a position to use this practice to benefit members of the AP family in a big way.

These were both eye-opening pieces that added wonderful texture to the @AP Twitter feed and brought some quality journalism to a new audience. And the members were really pleased to bring additional exposure and engagement to work they’re proud of.

How often will members’ stories be featured on @AP?Though we’re initially looking to do this a few times a week, we’re open to ramping it up considerably if we find that members are interested in the initiative and benefiting from the tweets.

It’s also worth noting that this is part of a broader effort to bring strong AP member journalism to a wider audience. On the AP mobile app, for example, we’ve featured content and even entire topical sections created by AP members, and we’re always looking for opportunities to do so again. AP members and customers looking to pitch something for us to highlight from Twitter or our mobile app should bring ideas to their AP representative.

We also continue to work on ways we can reconfigure our social and digital strategy to help our members meet their own online news goals. If members have their own ideas about how we can help them succeed online, we’re all ears.

The Associated Press today released a report looking at the news market in the Middle East and North Africa and suggesting ways it needs to evolve, particularly when it comes to video. The report is the latest in a series of Deloitte studies for AP into video news consumption globally. (The first covered Europe and the second covered Asia.)

Here, Sue Brooks, director of international products and platforms for AP, explains why the market for video news has never been stronger.

What have been the most striking findings of the reports?

The big “ah-ha” moment for me was the realization that news junkies see video as an essential part of their daily news fix. Although there are a lot of variations in the data across markets, consumers were consistent in their demand for more high-quality online video content – and this is especially true of consumers who are interested in the news, generally.

Sue Brooks

The research shows that this group is more likely to access a story if it has an accompanying video, and that video consumers have a higher dwell time on news content each day. When we asked why, people told us it was because video helps bring a story to life and improve their understanding of it. For example, in the Middle East, a massive 83 percent of consumers find this to be the case.

This overwhelming demand for video presents a number of opportunities for us and our customers. It also highlights how critical it is for the industry to adapt. In Europe, more than a quarter of respondents said they’d go elsewhere if video wasn’t available at their preferred news source.

How and why has demand for video news changed?

Video news stopped being the sole preserve of terrestrial and satellite broadcasters quite some time ago and online and mobile video news are now the norm; in fact many of our video customers are now newspapers.

It’s clear that the need for video has continued to grow and has achieved ever-greater importance. We expect this will continue with the spread of smartphones and strong growth in tablets, as well as steadily increasing broadband speeds via fixed and mobile connections.

How is AP helping its customers evolve to satisfy this demand?

The primary goal of the research is to help our customers understand the changes in consumer demand, but it has also given us insight into what we need to do to help our customers meet the challenges facing them.

We are at the forefront of change and, of course, our customers need us to keep our products and services relevant. That’s why in 2012 we launched AP Video Hub. We needed to address the increase in demand from online publishers for video news with a service that was compelling and easy to use. These customers saw video as another critical element of their storytelling tool box, but before 2012 it was difficult for non-broadcasters to access and use AP video easily.

Since the launch of AP Video Hub, the platform has gone from strength to strength and we recently announced our Content Partner Offer, which allows third-party content to be sold via the platform. The first partner to go live was Newsflare, an online video news community for user-generated video, which adds a new dimension to the site and meets an increasing demand for this type of content.

We also launched a new video service in the Middle East earlier this year to meet the insatiable demand for news in the region, offering customers more unique video content centered on the news that matters most to consumers there. Our Deloitte research showed that, perhaps more than anywhere else in the world, Middle East consumers value trusted news sources – particularly when it comes to video. We want to ensure that our customers are in a position to provide their own customers exactly what they need.

The Associated Press has released a new version of AP Mobile, its award-winning news app, to offer full support for Apple’s new operating system, iOS 8, and the hotly anticipated iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Here, Michael Boord, director of mobile products, explains how AP is staying ahead in the mobile space:

Director of Mobile Products Michael Boord (AP Photo).

How is AP Mobile optimized for iOS 8 and the new iPhone?From a user perspective, the app won’t look much different, but our developers have been working for months making backend changes that should make the app perform better than ever. We’ve also made some enhancements to the sharing features, so users can more easily post stories on social media. Users will notice a new “Big Story” carousel on their home screen to more prominently surface the major developing stories AP is covering around the world, from the Ebola outbreak to the entertainment awards season.

What content can users find on AP Mobile?The app features the best of AP’s journalism in every format, including breaking news alerts, hourly radio updates, stunning images, interactive graphics and video reports. It’s customizable, so users can choose what news categories they want, from sports and entertainment to politics or local news.

How does AP Mobile showcase local content?Users pick which local publications they want to see from our more than 1,100 contributing partners. We’re also working closely with AP members to showcase their work on the app’s tiled-based home screen. For example, we recently featured reporting from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, and content from the Richmond Times-Dispatch on the corruption trial of former Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell. These were stories of national interest and we helped our users discover content they might not otherwise see.

Who’s reading AP Mobile?Since its launch in 2008, AP Mobile has been downloaded over 14 million times and is consistently among the highest-rated news apps in the app stores. We tend to see spikes in the number of downloads when breaking news happens, and we find it gratifying that people turn to AP for fast, accurate information. Even the White House press secretary told CNN he uses the app to stay up to date.

What’s next?Because we’ve already optimized for iO8, we are well-positioned for substantial updates in the future. We’re hoping to roll out some new content features in November and are continuing to look for unique ways to surface compelling, authoritative local content.

The following promotion was announced today by AP Vice President and Managing Editor Lou Ferrara in an internal memo:

I’m pleased to announce that Paul Cheung is now AP’s director of interactive and digital news production.

Paul joined the AP newsroom in 2010 after roles at the Miami Herald and the Wall Street Journal. Most recently, he’s been serving as the president of the Asian American Journalists Association, where has received rave reviews from colleagues throughout the industry for his leadership and approach in building the organization.

Paul has been in the interim director role at the AP for the past several months, leading the team responsible for some of the company’s key products and innovation areas: interactives, data analysis and visualization, video explainers, mapping, GraphicsBank, news research, AP Overview and print graphics. The team — which includes staff at several AP offices around the world — also has been instrumental in the launch of the online products known as the digital news experiences, as well as parts of AP Mobile.

In this new role, Paul will oversee more of the production of those digital products, which had been part of the Nerve Center’s evolution the past few years. The digital news experiences, AP Mobile and a few other products related to specific customers will now roll up into the interactive and digital news production department. As part of this move, Jaime Holguin, who as the news development manager at the Nerve Center has played a pivotal role in the execution of many of these products, will report into Paul and the new department. Jaime, as he has been, will work with the business operations on products and be the point person between the rebooted, news-focused Nerve Center and the new department.

In the weeks ahead, Jaime and Paul will be working with Tamer Fakahany, the deputy managing editor overseeing the Nerve Center, on workflows and the location of products within the headquarters newsroom.

Please join me in offering congratulations, as these moves will allow us to continue to fine-tune our products and grow while refocusing the Nerve Center on the coordination of AP’s news report every day.